


The Meaning of Home

by Moon_Rose (Moonrose91)



Series: Horse Raised Knowledge [6]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moon_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is such a powerful word.</p><p>It can be where you came from or where you are. It can be a person or a place, an idea or an object.</p><p>Even a smell can mean <i>home</i>.</p><p>And because of that, home....home is malleable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Athos

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea while writing _The Language of Family_. Unlike the rest, this is timeless, spreading from pre-series to post-Episode 10.
> 
> Sorta.
> 
> Also; all the spoilers. (D'Art's chapter is what pushes it into this verse because I was writing this section that didn't fit and.......yeah. Fun?)

When the Comte de la Fère had been young, before he was the Comte de la Fère, when he was just the heir (if it could be called that), home had been simple.

His father had sent him to Academie d'Equitation, in Paris, from the youngest age that was allowed. It was there that he discovered that home was the sound of the harp filling the air, the gentle corrections as his horsemanship instructor to keep his hands light and gentle on the reins. French and Latin and Spanish (and more) weaving through the air and a rapier being placed in his hand followed by the thrill that came from besting an opponent for the first time.

In his childhood days, he had believed home would never change, but then he was fifteen and being called back home, to a brother who had never left home, a brother he he never really known (but oh, he was loved; Athos loved his little brother, always happy to see him, always happy to show him what he had learned and help in any way he could, since Father refused to let Thomas leave the county) beyond occasional meetings when he, himself, had returned for good.

Home soon became a curse word for the future Comte de la Fère; stressful and limiting. He felt as if he were a falcon locked in a gilded cage, forced to watch another falcon fly beyond the bars. He chaffed under the strict watch, missing the Academie, and swallowing back jealousy at the way everyone greeted _Thomas_ warmly. Reached out for _Thomas_ , talked to _Thomas_.

Thomas, everyone’s favorite.

Even Father’s, who smiled at Thomas’s _anything_ while only frowning and demanding Athos to do better, even when it was Athos who had (foolishly) risked his life to save Thomas’s when the _idiot_ rode a half-trained horse.

He had joined the military after that, ignoring his father’s demands of _why_.

He became the Comte de la Fère two years later, forced to leave the army and he did not hesitate to approve of Thomas’s travels with his tutor, hoping it would allow people to see that they could come to the one who held the title of Comte without Thomas, even if he was a quiet, stoic man who watched them all with no expression on his face.

Home was a cage, and a curse and he hated it.

And then Anne came.

Suddenly the cage was gone.

A breeze had come through and it was filled with the scent of forget-me-nots, shattering the golden bars from around him and setting him free. There was laughter and warmth and teaching Anne to ride (of not questioning the calluses on her hands and throwing a man who demanded livres for silence into the dirt, reminding him that Athos was a _Comte_ and he was not, and he should keep his mouth _shut_ about the Comtesse or he’d see a hangman’s noose, but those were best kept to the dark). It was warmth and laughter and _happiness_.

Home was once again a blessing.

It was passionate as well as springtime.

There was showing Anne how to hold a sword, teaching her to fence merely because she smiled up at him and asked why men had to have all the fun. There was joy the filled the air, sung through it, and when Thomas returned, it was _family_ , whole and hale again.

He introduced the pair and he had thought…

Home was destroyed in blood and using _their tree_ (all of theirs; it was his and Thomas’s, and his and Anne’s and…it was _theirs_ ) to hang a murderess.

The murderess of his brother, and the only reminder of the _ashes_ home was, was a silver locket with a pressed forget-me-not, and so Athos ran away. He ran away from La Fère, and thrown himself into a bottle.

There was no home for the Comte de la Fère anymore.

*~*~*

Athos doesn’t have a home, but the home starts with a man named Treville and a duel that never happens.

Athos is unsure of Treville, but decides that an aimless existence never suited him and if he can die in the service of King and Country, it is worth the loss of everything he cared for. It is for that purpose, gaining a commission, that he finds the will to crawl enough out of his bottle to be considered sober about half the time.

He gained a commission within the month but he gained a shadow, a man with a haunted gaze who tries to smile (and fails), from the moment he left the garrison the first day he was there, Athos’s shadow followed by a larger, broader shadow often long after the first bottle was finished by Athos and his shadow in the tavern a good stretch of the legs away from the garrison.

The man with the haunted gaze (the whisper of _Aramis, the survivor of the Massacre_ dogging Athos’s steps when Aramis follows him to the tavern) who races him to get drunk, and Athos never asks, even when Aramis’s guardian angel in human form comes swooping down into Athos’s corner, baring his teeth at Athos as he pulls Aramis up onto his feet.

He has his commission, and his shadow, for a time, before he loses his shadow and gains the man (who asks why Athos gets drunk whenever Aramis finds Athos in his corner) and Aramis’s guardian angel.

He gains a guardian of his own in the form of the fiery, protective, _brave_ Madame Bonnacieux, who tells him flatly that she’s merely protecting her husband’s customer (never mind Athos isn’t one who comes often enough to be deserving of a special eye) when she drags him out of his tavern.

He gains someone he wants to make proud in Treville when he realizes that Treville has covered mornings after heavy drinking, and cleans up, keeping his drinking to the days that he’s not pulled for duty.

He gains a surly gelding named Roger that no one wants, who seems to calm when Athos just waits out his Moods (which both Porthos and Aramis say match his own Moods quite well, but Athos doesn’t see it) with patience that is rewarded by the gelding slamming into someone who would otherwise harm Athos.

It is a free day the day Athos does not hesitate to press his sword blade against a Red Guard’s throat when the fool thinks Athos will just sit by when said Red Guard threatens an unarmed Porthos.

“I suggest you think twice,” Athos said, and that was enough to have the two of them (Aramis and Porthos) dragging him into their mischief while Treville seems to gain a permanent headache.

It starts, almost, to feel like home, but then he stumbles and the feeling of _home_ (that elusive curse) falls out of the hole he cut in his own soul.

It doesn’t matter he has a benevolent, and proud, father watching over them all from the balcony, of two brothers-in-arms (when he can manage to even _think_ that word). That there is someone who is willing to let him have his pride even as they haul him out of a tavern when said brothers are unable to, and it is more than he had before.

But _home_ remains within the ashes of his past; a curse and a failure and…

Home is not for Athos.

*~*~*

There is a boy one cold day, when fellow Musketeers have disappeared into thin air. He strides into the garrison, pain and grief surrounding him like an invisible, yet tangible, mist, aiming a pistol at them.

He calls for Athos himself, and then holsters his pistol once he has his answer and prepares for a duel that the boy (no matter his years, his spirit is very much a _boy’s_ ) cannot win.

He doesn’t want any more innocent blood on his hands.

He does not want another _boy’s_ blood on his hands, does not want this _d’Artagnan_ ’s blood to join _Thomas’s_ and _Anne’s_ and…

He fights to disarm, but not to kill, practically begging (but it doesn’t sound like that, but his mind is _screaming_ at d’Artagnan to please _stop_ before Athos has no choice but to slide a blade through his chest and he _can’t_ , please, please, please don’t make, him, please boy) to leave it.

D’Artagnan throws Athos’s main-gauche back at him however, the blade sinking into the wood, and the fight ends quickly after that, Aramis and Porthos losing the joviality in that moment.

D’Artagnan loses the fight.

Athos loses his freedom.

(It is, in his mind, justified. He, after all, killed his family nearly five years ago today.)

*~*~*

“I’m sorry.”

It is the first thing d’Artagnan says to Athos after…everything.

He is slightly confused over why the boy is still there, even though there is a horse and cart waiting (Athos does not need to look in the back of the wagon to see the coffin to know it is there).

Athos isn’t even sure why he seems to have a need to say those words at all.

“I am sorry that…it was never…I had never…All I had was a name to follow and I’m sorry, Monsieur Athos, that I nearly…I am sorry,” he said simply and then he was gone, hopping up into the wagon’s seat, his mare tied to the back. With a click of his tongue and a gentle smack of his reins, the draft began to walk away, leaving Athos to the chill of the morning.

Athos wasn’t sure why he felt like he should shout for the boy to come back, but he does not.

*~*~*

D’Artagnan comes back

The three Inseparables gain a shadow.

Athos tries not to care.

(He ends up caring too much.)

*~*~*

Athos doesn't notice when home starts solidifying, that gap in his soul that that feeling used to rush out of no longer there.

He doesn't notice when he says, “Let’s head home,” instead of “Let’s head to the garrison,” but Porthos and Aramis do, and they smile at d’Artagnan, who stares back with the spot between his eyebrows scrunched slightly, like it always does when he's confused.

Athos doesn't notice he has a _home_ till one day he is sitting with Aramis, watching d’Artagnan trying to figure out how to take down Porthos in hand to hand combat (never going to happen).

It is warm, but not overly so and Athos…

Athos is _home._

*~*~*

For Athos, the Musketeer, home is living beings.

It is Treville handing out orders, Porthos laughing, sharp and loud, and Aramis’s soft prayers to a God Athos no longer believes in. It is Roger’s gentle nicker, and d’Artagnan’s language.

Porthos’s rare (to Athos) hugs and the way Aramis keeps _just_ in his space. It is the clasp of a hand against his shoulder from Treville and a press a soft nose against his palm, and the way d’Artagnan trustingly leans into him after a nightmare and accepts hands soaked (far more than he realized) in the blood of innocent holding him close.

Home is…

Home is family.

And Athos has never been more relieved to have found it again.


	2. Porthos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He was chatty.

Porthos's home of his, short, childhood was barely remembered.

It was warmth and stories (stories that gave him nightmares, stories that gave him hope, stories whispered in "the words of home"), arms wrapped around him tight in the night when bad things happened.

Home one day ended with his mother wrapping him up as much as she could before pressing a trembling, freezing cold hand to his face and pressing a kiss to his forehead, and then stumbling away.

*~*~*

Home returns with the thrill of cutting a purse right off a nobleman’s belt, and running away with Charon and Flea at his heels.

It is the three of them falling into a pile in the farthest corner of the Court of Miracles and curling around each other to listen to Porthos share stories of his old home (but not the words of home).

It is cautiously approaching the man with the gap-toothed smile and skin _almost_ like Porthos’s, but not quite, who teaches him languages in exchange for a specific something (a bottle of wine or some coin were his most common prices).

Home starts to slip away when Porthos realizes he doesn’t belong, and that he never has, even when Flea presses a kiss that could be more (and he wants more, he _wants_ but he isn’t sure if he should accept) against the corner of his mouth while Charon seems to become snappish.

*~*~*

The man is a soldier, even if he seems to have an odd lightness to his step soldiers do not have.

He’s a soldier, and he’s not one who pushes his weight around, so he’s better than most. Porthos watches him, and the way he walks calmly down the street, when two men step out to follow.

Porthos follows them.

When they draw their knives and start to dart forward when the soldier goes up a narrow street, Porthos closes the distance and slams their heads together enough to send them sprawling, but not enough to cause permanent harm.

Not enough to cause death.

The soldier turned, drawing his sword with the movement and Porthos raised an eyebrow at the blade before he shifted his head to give the soldier a too sharp smile. “Just ‘cause you have a longer blade doesn’t mean I won’t do the same to you if you come at me,” Porthos warned and the soldier slowly sheathed his sword.

“Thank you,” he stated and Porthos gave a nod before he reached down to grab the unconscious men by their shirt collars.

“Where do you want ‘em?” Porthos asked and the soldier eyed the men.

“Can you carry them to the prison?” the soldier asked and Porthos gave a nod.

*~*~*

The soldier was Aramis and, with Aramis, Porthos starts to realize home is shifting under his feet again.

The solider, Aramis, was being considered for the newly formed Musketeers and seemed to be on the right track, more or less for it.

Porthos thought he was an idiot, trying to protect a man everyone wanted dead.

“Not everyone,” Aramis argued.

“Enough,” Porthos responded as he eyed those that walked past, making himself bigger when anyone looked  a bit too close, a bit too long at Aramis.

Porthos didn’t understand why Aramis seemed bound and determined to learn about him, but it was there.

So was that home feeling.

Porthos doesn’t question it, as his gut has never failed him before.

*~*~*

Home twists around him in a blurring of lines.

It comes to a head when he involves himself in a fight that is between the newly formed Musketeers and the newly formed Red Guards. He doesn’t hesitate to come to the aid of a man graying at the temples, nearly losing his eye in the process, even as he sends the Red Guard stumbling into another that is stalking up to Aramis’s unprotected back since the man that Aramis has attached himself to (Marsac and Porthos isn’t sure about him, but he doesn’t have any _bad_ feelings, so he mostly settles for being indifferent whenever Marsac shows up at Aramis’s heels down at the Wren) isn’t there.

He moves quickly, and soon the Musketeers have scattered, Porthos holding Aramis close before ducking down, dragging him towards the Court. “Come _on_ ,” Porthos ordered as he continued to drag Aramis down, the ranks closing behind him.

*~*~*

Flea and Charon are unsure of Aramis, though Aramis does not seem to share that wrong-footedness. Instead, he takes care of Porthos’s cut (“It’ll scar.” “Won’t be the first.”).

“You’d be great, you know,” Aramis stated as he looked over the beggars and thieves and whores, fingers twitching the way they did whenever he wanted to fix the wounds he saw.

“At what?” Porthos asked roughly, wondering why Aramis was even a soldier with the way he so desperately seemed to want to _fix_ people.

“Being a Musketeer,” Aramis stated and Porthos laughed sharply.

“Me? A Musketeer? I can’t see it,” Porthos stated.

“That’s because you aren’t really looking Porthos,” Aramis answered.

*~*~*

Porthos is set adrift, with only a glancing idea of _home_ when Flea begs him to stay and he begs her to come with him and they both say no.

He knows he can’t come back to the Court, that he’s lost this refuge, and so he moves onward, to the Musketeers’ garrison.

He doesn’t have a choice.

*~*~*

Porthos’s first horse is an ornery stallion, big and black who pins his ears back at everyone. He’s nearing retirement age, but Porthos knows people like that and well…

Animals are usually better than people.

This proves true again, and the white haired man who supplies the horses smiles a bit as he watches the way Porthos learns to ride on a horse that likes to pretend he’s going to roll on him. “I’ll find you a horse,” the man promises when he goes to leave, patting the stallion’s neck.

“Wish I had my boy here. He’d be able to bring you back the perfect horse from…somewhere. He has a knack, my boy, of finding horses in need of a home,” he murmured and then he hopped up into the driver’s seat of the wagon, a few young men (and Porthos can see one young man is a woman, but if they’re calling her a him, than Porthos will keep his mouth _shut_ ) hopping up into the back while others mount up on those that are cleared to be ridden to lead horses that are not cleared to be ridden.

They are gone as quickly as they came.

*~*~*

Savoy happens after Porthos gained his commission and the only reason Porthos isn’t counted amongst the dead is because his stallion was lame. Aramis comes back with dead eyes and a flagging soul, barely even a shadow of himself.

He turns to the bottle instead of prayer, which frightens Porthos more than he’ll care to admit, and it doesn’t help that the new recruit is drinking with him and Porthos wants to shake the man or chase him off or…

Porthos doesn’t however, instead dragging Aramis back to his own apartments and holding him as the drink makes his tongue loose (and he calls for a woman named Isabelle, and a nameless babe that never breathed, and for Marsac to _please, no, don’t abandon him amongst the dead_ , and it is that last one that has Porthos hating Marsac) and his emotions go all over the place.

Porthos holds Aramis close and pretends that Aramis said nothing of importance and locking his brother’s secrets away in farthest reaches of his soul.

It is through a great deal of work that Porthos drags Aramis back into the world of the living and is a bit surprised when Aramis decides to going bouncing after the new man around the garrison (Athos, apparently) and bug him.

Porthos eyes him from a distance, keeps a close eye on the interactions between Athos and Aramis, hesitant to like someone (even if his gut is relaxed around him, saying that it is okay). He relaxes a bit more when it is obvious that Aramis attached himself to Athos during the aftermath of Savoy purely because Athos _always_ drank. He did not need company and, in fact, seemed disinclined to it, but he would drink anyway.

He was less than amused, if the sharper than usual frown was anything to go off of, when Aramis tried to talk to him while he drank, but other than that…

Porthos wasn’t sure _what_ he was doing there.

*~*~*

“I suggest you think twice.”

Athos, drawling and calm, but his eyes focused intently on the Red Guard, Blanchet, sword tip at his throat, and Porthos decides that maybe Aramis was right about the idiot anyway.

The fact he doesn’t protest when they just forcibly drag him along with whatever they are doing (and eventually helping them plan it so they don’t get caught) just settles it for Porthos.

Athos is stuck with them and nothing will pry them from his side, not in the long run.

It felt like something is missing.

*~*~*

The usual man isn’t there when it is time to change out the horses, and one young man leads a brown, almost black, horse right up to Porthos. “Petit Alex almost wasn’t able to find a horse for you but he managed only off of mon oncle’s words. This is Petite. She’s still a bit shy around sudden movements towards her head, so be wary of that,” the young man greeted and Porthos nodded a bit at the mare, murmuring at her in French as he guided her to the side as a black horse squealed.

The man who brought him Petite cursed and hurried over, calling apologies about ‘Roger’ as he moved while Prothos investigated Petite. “I wonder who named you,” he murmured softly, lifting his hand, carefully before he rubbed gently at the white spot between her eyes.

“Petite,” he chuckled and the mare snorted softly.

*~*~*

Whoever Petit Alex was, he was very good at picking horses. While, yes, Petite still shied and tried to dart away when hands went towards her head unexpectedly, but over time she didn’t seem to mind, only snorting slightly instead of full out darting away.

Porthos adored her.

But…

For some reason, it still felt like something was missing.

*~*~*

The boy strides into the Garrison with the desperate air of someone who thinks they have nothing left to lose. Porthos has yet to meet someone with nothing to lose, and the only reason Porthos isn’t getting in the way is because it is Athos he is threatening.

Not that the boy can do anything, but…well…

Watching him fight Athos, he takes in the fact the boy, d’Artagnan, is favoring his left side and desperation is probably all that is keeping him going. He might have eaten yesterday, but Porthos suspects longer with how he moves.

Definitely longer since he’s eat-…

Porthos’s thoughts derail as the main gauche flies through the air and embeds itself in the wood instead of Athos’s back and Porthos feels as if his blood is on fire.

Now _that_ was uncalled for, no matter how grieved he was.

It is sad, really, how fast it is over, how quickly he’s pushed against the stairway, how…yeah, he’s already injured and grieving and…

Porthos is still angry, however, about the boy throwing a knife at Athos’s back.

He isn’t expecting Athos to be taken from them and he feels home start to shift beneath his feet again.

*~*~*

Finding d’Artagnan is difficult, but not impossible.

They hadn’t thought Madame Bonnacieux had taken him to her home, but there he is, getting cared for by Madame Bonnacieux as Monsieur Bonnacieux does his best to interrogate the young boy.

Porthos’s eyes flick quickly to the deep dark bruising that covers the boy’s ribcage before he brings his eyes up with his hand as the _idiot_ actually starts to draw his sword. “Whoa there, we’re not here to fight,” he soothed and d’Artagnan hesitated, before he sheathed his sword fully.

He comes with them and for some reason, Porthos glances at him quickly as they move, as if making sure that d’Artagnan is still with them, even though he has no reason to do such a thing.

After all, the boy tried to kill Athos just this morning.

*~*~*

“Fancy a game of cards? Whoever gets the king first, wins,” Porthos offered, once everything was settled and done.

D’Artagnan, with a glass of wine, shrugs with his right shoulder. “I don’t have much to gamble,” d’Artagnan stated and Porthos gave a nod, even as d’Artagnan shifted to question about the game.

*~*~*

The kid leaves, Aramis moves in with Porthos for a time (Adele is gone), and Athos seems like he wants to crawl into a bottle and curl up and not come back out.

Porthos feels like something has changed, that…

Something was _taken_ from them and Porthos wonders what has changed, because he feels unbalanced and something is _missing_ again.

*~*~*

When the kid comes back, Porthos feels something in him calm, even though he raises an eyebrow at the way d’Artagnan works with _Roger_ of all horses.

*~*~*

He fits, d’Artagnan, in a space Porthos hadn’t even realized was there for him and he smiles when he sees the way d’Artagnan handles Petite and Tristan, careful with Petite as he scratches her neck, not her cheek, and…

Porthos smiles and settles.

*~*~*

Home is behind and home is around and home is ahead.

It doesn’t matter, to Porthos, that home changes quite easily, that one day it won’t have Petite, but another horse, that this is just the way the world works.

But home is there, sturdy under his feet. Of Aramis right there, in his space, rarely out of reach (a comfort, that) and being able to wrap d’Artagnan tight in a hug and have the kid lean right in (of having him listen when Porthos teaches, eyes sharp and watching, learning).

Athos _with them_ instead of in the past or in a bottle and Treville watching over them, silent except in the giving of orders.

The way Petite doesn’t shy away from hands coming to her head anymore and sometimes nuzzles Porthos’s hand in the mornings when he comes to care for her.

It is the streets of Paris and the sound of the Court of Miracles, and the way he and Charon and Flea would curl up into a ball in some back corner, out of the way.

It is the way Charon died in his arms, too, though that is a sad portion of it, and words whispered in the dark, and Alice’s smile and wish to travel the world (and maybe she’ll find someone to take her, one day).

It is the way his mother made sure he was okay before she disappeared, shifting home for the first time under his feet.

It is a cold day when a desperate, grief-stricken, _injured_ boy came to fight a desperate, grief-stricken, man, and both lost something that day, but gained more in return.

It is behind and around and ahead.

Home, to Porthos is everything he has lived, everything he is living, and everything he’ll live through.

But most especially it is the brothers he’s found and the horses that carry them willingly into danger.


	3. Aramis (mentioned Death and Horse Death)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot of talk about sex in this chapter.
> 
> I wonder why.
> 
> *looks pointedly at Aramis*
> 
> Also, when I said Porthos was wordy?
> 
> Aramis beat him. This was 3,000+ words last I looked.
> 
> I then stopped looking.

Aramis knew from a young age that he had a different view of  _home_  than his family did.

The youngest of five, Aramis (René, while his christened name, was something only his mother called him) had long been drawn to the beauty of the Catholic church. He, unlike his siblings, had sat quietly during the sermons as a small child and, in his earliest memories, remembered the rise and fall of words he did not understand and a world filled with color.

It was this love of the beauty of the Catholic Church that had his parents ( _especially_ Mamá) hoping that it would change into a love for the beauty of the religion. It had them hoping that that love would lead to him becoming a priest, that one of their children would enter the Church.

He didn't have the heart to tell them that, while he loved the beauty of the church, he sometimes didn't see the beauty in the  _teachings_  of the Catholic Church (or any other church for that matter, later in life when he subtly looked elsewhere), however, thinking that the condemnation of a man to Hell for finding love in another man was wrong.

(He never voiced that opinion however, seeing enough to realize that others didn’t see, or would refuse to see, the beauty that came in love, so long as it was there and honest and true and _why couldn’t they see_?)

Given the best education that his father could afford (as his siblings before) Aramis found he was happiest sitting at his mother’s knee, learning Spanish and “womanly” arts.

And when all of it was too much, he slipped out of the house and wandered through the village, finding the beauty hidden within.

*~*~*

Aramis was in his teen years when he discovered some beauty, like that which can be found within forbidden passions, is _particularly_ invigorating.

His father despairs at the fact Aramis seems intent on having sex with every girl his age he can.

His mother introduces him to horses.

“Remember René, he who does not love a horse cannot love a woman,” she simply stated as she pet her favorite brown mare’s neck.

When he asked her what she meant, she merely smiled and gently ran her fingers through his hair with a murmured, “You will see.”

*~*~*

His parents hold out hope for him finding a calling in priesthood and there is talk of sending him to a monastery.

Aramis hopes for adventure.

He finds Isabelle.

*~*~*

Isabelle is _beautiful_. Soft spoken, and eyes always looking to the horizon she sits so softly and seems so gentle, that Aramis feels drawn to her, especially when she seems so _oblivious_ to how _beautiful_ she is.

For her, Aramis is sweet and gentle. He thinks of the horses in the field (he finds the creatures dull, but in this moment Isabelle reminds him of them and he thinks maybe he is missing something about the creatures), and thinks on how they need a soft hand to get the best response.

Isabelle blushes and smiles.

Aramis smiles in return.

At sixteen, Isabelle should be married and Aramis should be thinking about going out into the world to court adventure before being sent away.

Aramis hadn’t thought it possible for Isabelle to be any more beautiful, but within a forbidden embrace she outshines the stars.

*~*~*

Isabelle is discovered pregnant the day his mother’s favorite brown mare dies.

(Later, when Aramis looks back, he wonders if it was God’s way of warning him and that he could not see it through the thrill of _fear_ and _want_ that coursed through him at the time.)

Isabelle’s father immediately demands they marry and Aramis’s father agrees, and Aramis…

Well, he will be content, at least.

He spends more time with Isabelle and is utterly _fascinated_ by the beauty he finds there, hidden away, especially when she talks of the Church.

He starts to court the idea that he’ll be _happy_ when Isabelle loses the child. Aramis feels as if all the beauty, except that held by Isabelle (and a small, tiny, spark that whispers of _adventure_ that he ignores), is taken from the world.

And then Isabelle’s father sends her away and the world is without beauty.

*~*~*

His mother presses the reins of a newly trained chestnut mare so red she almost shines like freshly spilled blood into his hands before she reaches up to gently cradle his face in her hands. “Oh, my René, my poor René,” she whispered and pressed a kiss to his forehead before she pulled away.

“My sweet René, _go_. Find yourself again,” she whispered and Aramis obeys.

(He does not see his mother again till after he has gained his commission.)

*~*~*

He has been on the road for a month when he names his mare Belladonna.

He does not know why he does so.

*~*~*

Aramis has managed to borrow a field and he lets Belladonna out into it. He watches her take off, her neck arching slightly and the tail flaring and he thinks, for the first time in two years, _beautiful._

The next day, he enlists in the military, in time for Marie de’ Medici to escape from Blois.

*~*~*

Battle is not beautiful.

It is a horror story painted in the blood of his friends and the death of those around him. It is horrible and when it is over, he is glad to return home, his body whole.

He writes to his mother, but does not leave Paris.

When the Huguenots rebel on Christmas day that year, he decides he does not like them on that principle alone.

*~*~*

The air is chilled with the coming winter as Aramis works on cleaning his weapons, meticulous as he ever is, the arquebus he had won by being the best shot (if he aimed at it, he hit it and there were whispers of it being both a sign he had made a deal with the Devil for it and that it was a blessing by God against the Huguenots and proof that _they_ were the benighted heretics, both of which had him rolling his eyes as he settled his simple hat more firmly on his head) getting the bulk of the care.

He sighed when his hat was lifted off his head and did not hesitate to reach up and, carefully, pull it free from his mare’s teeth. “Stop that,” he stated and Belladonna snorted softly, even as he settled it back on his head, leaning more against the pasture’s fence as he continued to clean his arquebus.

“D’Herblay,” his commanding officer, d’Aramitz, called and Aramis looked up from his arquebus to find that his commanding officer was walking towards him, a man with a receding hair line following him.

Aramis slowly stood up and settled the arquebus on his shoulder as he did and Belladonna carefully settled her head over his opposite shoulder. “Lieutenant d’Herblay, I am Captain Treville,” he greeted and Aramis tipped his hat slightly.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Lieutenant,” Treville stated and Aramis smiled almost against his will.

“I do hope it was all good. I’d hate to have left a bad impression,” Aramis stated cheerfully as he ran his fingers along his mustache.

Treville raised an eyebrow and then glanced over at d’Aramitz. “Are you sure this is _the_ d’Herblay who never misses a shot?” Treville asked and Aramis felt his smile curl up.

“It is a thing of beauty Captain,” Aramis stated, ignoring d’Aramitz’s glare to _shut up_.

“Prove it,” Treville stated and Aramis blinked a bit.

“Captain?” he questioned.

“Prove it, this Saturday, at the palace, before the _King_ , that you cannot miss,” Treville stated and Aramis blinked a bit before he leaned back slightly.

He remembered rumors, rumors of some of the cavalry being picked, _handpicked_ by the King himself in fact, to be an elite guard for the King and France.

“What time?” Aramis asked.

“At noon. Bring your horse and a sword, but a musket will be provided for you there,” Treville stated and Aramis nodded as he watched Treville walk away.

“Could have gone better,” d’Aramitz stated.

“Could have gone worse as well,” Aramis stated lightly as he reached up to scratch Belladonna’s cheek.

D’Aramitz gave him a sharp look before he walked away and Aramis shook his head slightly, sighing when Belladonna stole his hat.

“You ugly brat,” he murmured without any true bite behind it.

Belladonna promptly dropped his hat in the mud.

*~*~*

“Can he do it again?” the King asked and Aramis resisted the urge to smirk.

Instead he removed his, nice, hat and gave a probably not proper at all bow to the royal couple. “If you so desire your Majesty,” he answered and the King seemed more amused than upset by his cavalier nature, though the Queen had gone back to her silent contemplation of the distance.

Truly, while she was a gorgeous woman, she was only _beautiful_ during the show of horsemanship, fingers twitching against the arms of her seat, as if she wanted to join them.

Sad, truly, that her beauty was slowly being suffocated away under all those layers.

Ah well.

“Well, if you do manage to do it again, you’ll be my first Musketeer,” the King stated and Aramis blinked a bit before he gave another bow and settled his hat back on his head.

Mentally he began to pray as he went through the motions of taking care of the musket, quicker than most in the lineup, though most hadn’t spent the last three years being on the front lines of every major conflict.

(He remembered fighting against fellow Frenchmen and he hates the Queen-Mother just a bit for that.)

He carefully settled, murmured a soft prayer and ducked his head as he fired, feeling his body thrum with the beauty of the action.

He looked up and resisted the urge to smirk with the knowledge that the musket ball had entered the bull’s-eye right behind the first.

“There’s no proof! No one could make that shot,” Richelieu argued from the King’s side, even as Aramis pulled up his musket to begin cleaning it while an aid went to the target.

Within moments, the King was smiling as two musket balls sat in his hand from where they had been dug out of the target.

“I think Lieutenant d’Herblay has earned his commission, don’t you Cardinal?” Louis asked and Aramis gave a closer to proper bow.

The King merely smiled as if he had won some grand bet.

*~*~*

The pauldron is plain, but he’ll fix that later. The uniform is mostly what can be crafted quickly with uniforming qualities given to it. It is a good way to insure that they look nice while also giving it a bit of personal flair.

Aramis suspects the King’s hand in it.

“If you have anyone to tell, I suggest you do so now. In a month, it will be official,” Treville warned and Aramis nodded.

Funny, how it didn’t feel like home anymore.

*~*~*

Mamá is as beautiful as Aramis remembers her, if smaller.

He can easily wrap his arms around her now and she has silver in her braided hair. “My René, have you found yourself?” she asked warmly as she cradled his now bearded face between her worn hands and he smiled.

“I believe so Mamá,” he answered softly.

“Good,” she answered.

“Put your mare up and I must tell you about all you’ve missed,” she stated and swept in.

His father is nowhere to be seen.

(Aramis is not surprised.)

*~*~*

His oldest sister, Josephine, had finally married and he has a nephew, though she and her husband had moved out of the village. His eldest brother had joined some trading business, but the way his mother’s lips purse have Aramis not asking what it is he’s trading in.

(Aramis doesn’t want to know.)

His youngest sister (barely older than him), Christina, got married during the first year he had been on the road and had a child shortly after, making Aramis wonder if his sister gotten pregnant to marry someone she wanted to (if the smile on his mother’s face is any indication, that was exactly what she did).

It is from his mother that he learns that Jean has left home and has become a Huguenot and they do not know if he survived the rebellion.

Aramis cannot tell her (he did not see the Huguenot dead, just his own) and she does not ask him.

Isabelle’s father had, apparently, died last year (and with him, any knowledge of Isabelle’s location, but Aramis lets it go because one cannot hate the dead) and Aramis absorbs. He excuses himself and he is surprised when she asks, “Going to walk the village again?”

He merely nods and leaves the warm kitchen.

(It is funny, how the village seems so _ugly_ now, when his mother is still oh so beautiful.)

*~*~*

Aramis starts to find beauty in women (and men, but those he keeps silent about to everyone except himself and God) again and begins to flirt with them encouragingly when he can.

He is so very thankful that he can still find beauty even before they fall into forbidden embraces.

(He does not promise love. They do not expect it.)

*~*~*

Marsac is a blessing that Aramis thanks God for every day.

He had met the man quite by chance while running from an enraged husband (which, really, he shouldn’t be so enraged considering he, himself, has _four_ mistresses) and he helped him escape before falling against Aramis with a laugh. “So what they say is true,” he exclaimed with a smile which made him seem to light up and Aramis can’t help but smile back because that smile makes this man he does not know (but who wears the pauldron of a Musketeer) so very beautiful.

“What is that?” Aramis asked.

“The deadliest shot in the Musketeers has lousy aim with finding women,” the man stated and Aramis laughed a bit.

“Now, where is the fun of going after eligible women?” Aramis asked brightly and the man laughs again, bright and bold and…

Aramis thinks he might love this man, a little, which is absurd.

(Isabelle still holds his heart, after all.)

*~*~*

Aramis never speaks on his feelings, unsure of how Marsac will react to it and not willing to die, or worse, for finding out how much more  _beautiful_  Marsac would be in such an unguarded state.

It is during one of these moments of musing, when he misses the two men hired (most likely by a jealous husband) to follow him (and possibly do him harm), that he meets Porthos.

*~*~*

The horsemaster for the Musketeers is a man who is going prematurely white haired. The name escapes Aramis (“Its Alexandre Aramis,” both Porthos and Marsac intone in one voice which has him laughing when the pair shared a slightly disgruntled look at that) but he always is gentle with Belladonna.

“You know, when it is time to retire her, I would be glad to buy her for five livres,” he offered, once, and Aramis had frowned while he scratched her neck.

“Think on it? She’s got a good nature and I think she’d make a good dam,” the man stated and Aramis nodded hesitantly.

The man had smiled and since his nephew, for the nephew had taken over bringing the horses, had brought Alexandre’s offer with him as well.

Then Porthos’s stallion goes lame just as they head for the Savoy border for a training exercise.

“You sure you’ll be all right without me?” Porthos asked (his pauldron is shiny and bright on his shoulder still) as Aramis mounted up onto Belladonna’s back.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Aramis asked as he clasped Porthos’s shoulder with a hand before he rides out of the Garrison with the rest of the Musketeers on Belladonna’s back.

He does not ride back.

*~*~*

It is a forest of the dead and there is no beauty.

It was all a lie.

*~*~*

Aramis is cleared in the body and he dives into a bottle to join the new recruit, Athos.

He drinks and he thinks he may have sobbed about Isabelle and the baby and Marsac (oh, _God_ , Marsac had just _left him_ among the dead, with no supplies no… _anything_ , and he had _left_ , left him to discover Belladonna, oh _God_ ), but Porthos never says anything so he doesn’t ask.

It is when they talk about the new horses that Aramis manages to say, “No mares,” and repeats it until they understand.

He will not ride another mare ever again.

*~*~*

It is Porthos’s gentle hands as they pick him up.

It is Porthos’s warm arms as they hold him close.

It is Porthos’s soothing voice in lilting Spanish.

It is _Porthos_ that brings Aramis back from something worse than death.

It is _beautiful_.

For the first time since Savoy, Aramis cries while sober for the brothers gone and Belladonna and even Marsac, may God be with him wherever he is.

*~*~*

Porthos doesn’t question why Aramis wants to share quarters when they talk about moving out of the Garrison.

He doesn’t question why Aramis won’t sleep in his own room, or even in his own bed when Porthos just one day moves Aramis's bed into Porthos’s room (and they change the other room into a place for Porthos’s books and _dear Lord_ the man collects books like a magpie collects shiny objects; hardly the cheapest hobby he could have picked up). He just curls around Aramis (or tugs him up into the bed on days Aramis feels on edge) and doesn’t _ask._

Aramis tells him anyway.

It is the warmth of another body, the beat of another heart, that reminds him he is not in the forest of the dead and keeps the nightmares at bay.

On the days that the world is gilded lies, Aramis thinks it is the only thing that keeps him sane is the fact Porthos stays beautiful.

*~*~*

Athos needs them.

That is enough for Aramis to wish to help, his steady healing, killing hands reaching for the battered soul that might have been beautiful once (could be again) and trying.

(They’re not enough.)

*~*~*

“His name is Tristan. My son says that he needs someone who’ll be careful with him,” Alexandre says as he gives the reins to the black gelding to Aramis.

Before Aramis can ask how can they be so sure that he is the right one for this beautiful creature, Alexandre is gone to talk to Porthos about future mounts for the larger man.

*~*~*

Aramis isn't sure what to think of d’Artagnan. The boy has a gentle soul that has been badly abused by the world and he has a magic with horses that is unrivaled.

The boy does not fit here, but he somehow slips seamlessly into a space and makes…he makes the group of three into a group of four and…

Aramis almost thinks they are beautiful in that.

D’Artagnan is an idiot however, and Porthos is already attached. And it would not do to see Porthos harmed by d’Artagnan.

He thinks Athos is attached too.

(Aramis knows he is when he wraps an arm around too thin shoulders in the cold during a duel to get him thrown into prison, but he still tries to protect the other two, tries to keep them safe.)

(They do not deserve to be marred when they've only begun to heal, and Aramis is starting to believe that he’ll never heal. Never be beautiful again.)

*~*~*

The words are so full of love that Aramis wants to grab their boy and shake him for not sharing such a thing with the world.

Does he not see how beautiful it would be?

(Aramis wonders later if he can’t because no one has taught him to see the beauty in that which is different.)

*~*~*

The Queen is beautiful in her mercy, she is beautiful in the way she carries herself above the pain that is doled out onto her, is beautiful in the face of such horrible loss.

Beautiful in the way she tries to reach out as if he is the beautiful one.

How can he do anything but kiss her?

How can he do anything but take her to the Mother Superior’s bed (which he should really not do) he show her how beautiful he sees her?

And how can he not show her the affection she is so obviously lacking in her life with gentle kisses against each eyelid, drifting down her neck and across her shoulder and…he wants to make her feel as beautiful as he sees her.

(He feels bad about having to chase after Athos and tries to apologize, but something seems dimmed and he thinks it is the reminder that he is a Musketeer and she is the Queen and the realization that they have committed treason.)

(Maybe it is the realization that if it is ever discovered, Athos will join him on the gallows.)

*~*~*

Home is the beauty of the stained glass windows at sunset and the mass that goes on through the night.

It is in the beauty found with his brothers, in knowing they will do their best to keep him safe and be by his side.

It is in knowing that what little beauty left that he can still see, they will always be a part of that.

It is the beauty of knowing he can curl up with Porthos and be asked no questions and the beauty in knowing he can encourage Athos away from the bottle on not Bad Days and it is the beauty of speaking softly in Spanish with d’Artagnan for no reason other than to hold a conversation.

It is the beauty of knowing that Tristan is young and strong and will not fall like Belladonna did and the way _all_ of their horses take to the fields, but come at a call.

And it is beautiful to know that he can look at himself again and know that while he is no longer whole, he is beautiful too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted Aramis's idea of home to be strange and yet still fit.
> 
> The focus on beauty, in case you were wondering, is not necessarily that it is the place, or person, that is fitting on society's view of beauty, but that the fact he cares for them that makes them beautiful, or that he sees their beauty because he cares about them in the first place.
> 
> Also, hey, Aramis is bisexual. That came out of nowhere.
> 
> On actual historical events:
> 
> Aramis is 18 one February 21/22 when Louis's mother, Marie de' Medici escapes and is the figurehead of a revolt with Louis's little brother (Gaston d'Orléans) as the head.
> 
> Anyway, in REAL HISTORY, in 1630 she would have still been in the Royal Court, but it really is more interesting to have her banished to Angers or Compiègne. Actually probably Compiègne, if just to make my life easier.
> 
> Yeah, basically Episode 6 could be seen as a creative interpretation of the Day of Dupes, where Marie and her cohorts believed that they had managed to convince Louis XIII to have dismissed Richelieu and....yeah, no, that didn't happen.
> 
> Also, fun thing I did for Aramis.
> 
>  
> 
> **Aramis's Probable Service Record**
> 
>  
> 
> He was there during the entirety of Marie de' Medici's revolt, from her escape February 21/22, 1619 to August 7, 1620, when the Battle of Les Ponts-de-Cé, Poitou was won by Louis XIII. I'm gonna go with he actually was at the Battle of Les Ponts-de-Cé, Poitou.
> 
> On the heels of this victory, he would have gone straight into the First Huguenot Rebellion (FHR and remember, it is only called a rebellion when you lose). Well, not straight straight.
> 
> The FHR began on Christmas Day in 1620 and would end with the signing of the Treaty of Montpellier on October 18, 1622.
> 
> \- I figure that the Musketeers were founded after this. (In Real History, they were light cavalry given muskets. In Musketeers, there seems to be more of a choice thing, but I am sure they pulled from there. The Red Guards were founded after the Musketeers and, yes, that happened in Real History too.)
> 
> The Second Huguenot Rebellion (SHR) began in February, 1625. This was entirely naval, from what I could glean, and the Musketeers are focused on, you know, protecting the King, so they would not have been involved.
> 
> \- Savoy happens after SHR starts, probably part of the reason they wanted to get rid of the Spanish spy (would be super bad if that happened while you were taking care of a rebellion that YOUR spy was discovered).
> 
> The SHR, officially, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 5, 1626, though no fighting had been happening before that point.
> 
> The Third Huguenot Rebellion (THR) also sparked the Anglo-French War.
> 
> Both the THR and the Anglo-French War started on June 1627. Richelieu practically lead the Seige of La Rochelle (part of the THR) into complete victory (there is a fantastic painting based on it, all dressed in red and...okay, he really looks like a hero out of a story, which is fascinating) and basically secured the Peace of Alais which stripped the Huguenots of everything except their right to practice the religion they wanted (they could no longer have weapons or siege things or....yeah, basically left them defenseless if anyone went after them, which is why the gunpowder in Episode 5 is such a big THING).
> 
> The Anglo-French War also ended England's involvement in the 30 Years War (something France would get involved in more obviously in 1635), but that was in 1629.
> 
>  
> 
> **End of Service Record up to this point**
> 
>  
> 
> So Aramis, Athos, _and_ Porthos all served within THR and the Anglo-French War.
> 
> But Aramis's (probable) Service Record was....detailed. Wow.
> 
> So much fighting.
> 
> His comment about being so much better about dispatching souls makes _so_ much more sense now.
> 
> (Oh, also; Anne of Austria was actually an avid equestrian, something that Louis XIV shared with her. However, we probably won't see her riding by herself till after 1631 for....reasons.)


	4. d'Artagnan (Horse Neglect, Horse Abuse *scene shamelessly borrowed from the book "Black Beauty"*, 1600s Horse Euthanization)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that I used Alex and yes, I too have issues with it sometimes and I had to erase and rewrite Charles into Alex twice, so if you catch a Charles, please tell me.
> 
> Spoilers for the warnings in the Notes, so if you want to be better prepared...I would read it.
> 
> (I cried.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horse neglect - while we never learn the horse's name, little d'Art and his mother find a severely neglected horse and the horse, a stallion, eventually follows (via hobbling and limping) d'Art back home. The rest is hinted at, until the gray mare scene (aka the scene that is shamelessly borrowed from _Black Beauty_ )
> 
> Horse Abuse - a gray mare is harshly trained with methods that were popular at the time, but were, and are, abuse. It is also shamelessly borrowed from _Black Beauty_ , specifically Ginger's story where she talks about being "trained", but that was mostly because It is heavily hinted that Petite went through something similar while there is a hint of Tristan, the horse, going through straight abuse. (D'Art may have nearly lost a tooth in getting Tristan.)
> 
> 1600s Horse Euthanization - "Nicolo is breathing heavily..." just skip down to the next *~*~* because it is depressing. Because d'Art decides it isn't fair if he's not there till the end and....well....they didn't have drugs. D'Art did wait till he was asleep, however, but basically d'Art was stubborn and had to be the one to...euthanize Nicolo. (He had colic and fluid in his lungs. One or the other would have killed him after a long and painful battle, but this is where I burst into tears and had to leave the fic for a while.)

Alex remembers dim days in the barn, clutching at manes while his mother murmured to him in Italian and Spanish, cradling him close. His father would later say how he hadn't even been a day old when his mother had fought her way out of her birthing bed, swaddled Alex against the February chill, and had marched him to the barn to be among the horses.

For it was not his father who had introduced him to horses and taught him how to ride; it was not his father who had taught him how to make a bran mash or how to take care of ill horses.

His father needed to focus on the breeding of the horses and insuring that they met the need of the cavalry. He sometimes could not focus on the day to day care of the horses, though he knew it as well as Alex’s mother (and maybe she knew more, because sometimes she would do things that his father never even thought of).

Home is warm and filled with the smell and sound and feel of horses as his mother sings in both Italian and Spanish, wrapping him up in her arms, black hair falling in curls around his face.

It is the way his father shifts his grip on the wooded sword and main-gauche, the lilt of the Gascon language filling the air.

French as those outside of Gascony of use has no foothold in their household until Alex is close to six years old and that is only because his uncle mentions it to his father.

But there is another language that no one else knows and it is shared only between mother and son.

Alex loves it, just as much as he loves his mother.

*~*~*

The first time his view of _home_ is marred (for what is a home without horses and dogs in the stalls and cats that prowl?) is when he and his mother see a stallion forgotten in a field.

He could have been something, once and later that evening he sneaks back and begins to spend time with the horse.

One day, he just walks back with the stallion limping and hobbling after him.

No one claims him and when asked, Alex says he found him and he did.

(The stallion was left alone too long to ever carry anyone, his hooves too tender for shoes and Alex worries, but the stallion is gentle and calm. His foals carry the calmness, but they are not always gentle.)

*~*~*

His father and mother start to work together more with training the horses after Madame Noire helps them and Alex beams when he gets to ride on his own for the first time, the Cob gelding a quiet sort who ignores the excited hum that fills Alex.

His father laughs and his mother smiles when he shows them the trick he taught Nicolo, the gelding bowing low. The Cob nuzzles Alex’s hair and Alex beams, happy to have his own horse to call _his_. His friend, his companion.

(And, when Alex dares to think it, the brother he never had as he was the only one.)

*~*~*

His mother does not like Francisco, but his father wishes to see if what the letters of recommendation say are true. If they can have another trainer about, it means that his father can focus on them.

Alex, however, is agreeing with his mother.

Francisco is _not_ a man Alex wants near his home.

*~*~*

He is right.

He tells no one, however, because who would believe him, besides mother?

Instead, Alex calms the horses and teaches them to kick.

It ends with him in bruises and Francisco losing a leg.

His mother mutters about how he should have lost his life for daring to touch _her_ son.

(His father agrees as he holds Alex tight as if terrified to let go and find that Alex isn’t there at all.)

*~*~*

 _Home_ turns to ashes with the cottage and his mother.

The barns are safe, and so are the horses, and Alex crawls into Nicolo’s stall and the Cob bows in such a way that Alex can use the horse’s leg to mount up quickly.

He clings and sobs and rages into the chestnut gelding’s mane, wondering if there is anything that will one day fill the hole his mother left when she died.

*~*~*

Alex’s world plunges into a place of fear and uncertainty. Nicolo is ever calmer, even as Alex’s father tries to calm him down as he feels like there is a storm raging inside him with nowhere to go.

He wants to scream and howl and fight, but there in the stables until a new cottage can be built, so he can’t and…

And…

Alex is lost and can’t find his way, the storm draining away with nowhere to go, leaving him hollow.

*~*~*

Alex begins to wander from the stables in the afternoons, his father and the men who are helping too busy to keep a close eye on the nearly ten year old boy.

On one such wandering he is drawn to the sound of a fight between a rider and a horse, and slips through until he comes to a field, the rider (a man) cursing the mare as the mare challenges him.

Alex is hidden from the rider’s sight when he stops dead upon seeing a gray mare rear and plunge, fury in every line of their body.

There is blood trickling from her mouth where the bit has harmed the corners and across her rump from where the riding whip cut too deep and she is the incarnation of the storm that had left Alex and he wonders if she was where it had went.

Alex watches for a time before he hides his face, realizing that the man is like Francisco, trying to get the mare to submit to him through fear and pain.

Alex knows that it will not work, that the mare is too furious, too proud, and too stubborn to submit to such a fashion, that the only way she can be reached is with time and gentleness.

When the man storms away, leaving the mare fully tacked in the ring, screaming challenges to the man’s retreating back, Alex makes a decision.

Alex waits until she is calm before he works on getting her free of her tack.

(He nearly gets kicked in the head for it, but she’s free of the burden.)

*~*~*

Alex goes back every day and does his best to help her. In turn, she calms under his hands and, as the mare calms from the storm she is, Alex feels as if he’s filling back up.

One day the man does not come back.

He does not come back for three days before Alex takes her home.

*~*~*

Alex starts to have nightmares after they move into the new cottage.

Nightmares so horrible, he wakes up screaming and crying, feeling as if he is being suffocated.

His father is there, holding him close and murmuring softly, comfortingly, into his hair, but it isn’t right without the Language, without a song in Spanish or Italian and it _isn’t right_ and he sobs harder until he falls asleep into more nightmares.

*~*~*

Alex’s nightmares never leave him for long; they just come to the point where he no longer wakes his father.

*~*~*

Alex wonders over being a parent to two rambunctious foals. He wonders if his mother felt this way, if his father feels this way, and spends his days whispering to them and holding them in his heart when he can’t physically hold them and tries desperately not to think about how he will outlive them.

(He fails.)

*~*~*

When Roger and Portia are weaned fully away from him, content when he is not in hearing range, Alex starts to ‘find’ horses again. He finds horses in need of homes, in need of safety, in need of love and brings them to where they can get it.

He is ever skilled in finding horses for people, to be what they need. A noble has a hunter, a farmer a plough horse (or mule).

When his father speaks of a man, a Musketeer, who is tall and broad and in need of a horse that will carry him fearlessly, Alex’s mind turns to the problem.

He finds a brown mare with a white star on her forehead, a white splash on her right hind leg, but she shies at movement to her head and reverses all orders in panicked confusion, her training had been started poorly and left badly incomplete.

At four years old when Alex finds her, he knows if he cannot get her around in two years she will not carry a Musketeer.

He names her Petite and hopes between himself and his cousin, Simon (Jerome too busy with helping his father) they manage to train her to a Musketeer horse’s standard.

(Alex has faith. Simon does not.)

*~*~*

Alex is distracted by Tristan, timidly powerful Tristan, found in the cold without food and terrified of his own shadow and thinks about the 22 dead horses and…

 _Someone who is lost could use a horse like Tristan_.

“He needs a gentle hand, Father,” Alex says as he pushes the reins into his father’s hand and his father understands.

He hopes Tristan helps someone who is lost.

*~*~*

“Alex, I know you want to help but you must stop _finding_ horses. If you keep it up, you will be hung and…,” his father explains after Alex brings home a stallion with a bad limp.

Alex stops bringing them to the stables.

He doesn’t stop saving them.

*~*~*

Nicolo is breathing heavily as Alex runs his fingers through the gelding’s mane, singing softly as he stares into the distance. There is a pit being dug and Alex tightens his grip on the gelding.

The gelding is old and a sickness had gotten into his lungs. The coughing had been bad and when he got colic on top of it…

Even Alex knew where it was going, though he doesn’t want it to.

He starts to sob and buries his face into the gelding’s neck as the pit continues to be dug for the faithful gelding.

Alex is the one to pull the trigger and put the gelding out of his misery.

This time it is not fire that takes his home, but the earth, burying a large portion (a portion connected purely to his mother, and it rips the barely healed wound right open) under a tree.

He screams, throws the pistol away, runs to Portia, and they ride off.

*~*~*

The storm rages inside of Alex for days as he sobs and screams and fights.

He comes back home with an eye that is swollen shut, a split lip, and more bruises than he has skin.

(Portia is completely unharmed.)

*~*~*

Home is slow to be rebuilt this time, shaky and uncertain.

Alex feels like something has been ripped from him and he’s slowly bleeding out and…

Portia is there, nudging his cheek and his father is pulling him close.

But it is wrong without Nicolo’s soft snort and his mother’s songs.

*~*~*

Home has barely settled for Alex, who has thrown himself into groundwork training for foals and yearlings, preparing them for going to his uncle’s farm, when his father brings up going to Paris about the taxes.

They are unbearable for just the other day one of the families that provided the hay and oats for the horses of the Musketeers had to leave, the taxes levied against them too harsh.

Alex knows that they need to go.

He does not want them to go.

(They go.)

*~*~*

Home drowns and Alex is left only with Portia who, it seems, will be better off without him as the world tries to rip his soul from him piece by piece and keep him from finding peace.

When the storm comes, there is no way to contain it and Alex lashes out at the only thing he can name.

 _Athos_.

*~*~*

Alex isn’t used to apologizing.

He does his best, but he thinks he fumbles it, but that might be the hollowness come back.

Home has drowned and it is gone and…

Portia snorts and nuzzles his cheek and d’Artagnan sobs, wrapping his arms around the mare’s neck.

Petit Alex is dead.

D’Artagnan, the future Musketeer has taken his place.

*~*~*

Home creeps upon d’Artagnan in increments, a part of him (the part of him that is Petit Alex still) fearful to accept what is so willingly given.

Porthos is warm and never asks when d’Artagnan wakes, either from the burning or the drowning waking him, to cling tight to the warmth there. He curls into the hugs willingly given and clings tight to it with his mind.

Aramis is always willing to speak with d’Artagnan in Spanish and d’Artagnan draws comfort from it, the words singing through the air as he draws closer, surprised whenever Aramis pulls him into a hug, though d’Artagnan feels he shouldn’t be.

Athos lets him into his space. Athos lets him into his past.

Athos lets d’Artagnan drag him out of the fire that was gutting his childhood home and d’Artagnan doesn’t sleep after getting back to Paris.

Home sneaks up on d’Artagnan until he turns around and it is there.

*~*~*

Home is the d’Artagnan Language singing through the air, either to plan or to plot or to laugh. It is the way Aramis patches them all up with steady hands and the way Porthos never asks, only accepts.

It is the way Athos carries himself and lets them in his space, lets them close and holds them within his orbit without even thinking it out of it.

It is the way Portia nuzzles his cheek and the way Roger nudges him for apples, the pair racing around the field, drawing a dainty Petite into their game, the mare having lost most of the shyness around her head, and bringing Tristan around from where he tries to stand away, no longer timid but happy to stay still until tempted.

It is knowing that he can never return to Lupiac and be happy, not when Petite Alex no longer really exists except in memories.

It is knowing that he can never sit with Madame Noire again, despite the fact she’s still alive and the only one who understands what it means to have a part of you dead while you live out your life.

Home is also filled with the low-level fear that his born from experience that he could lose it once again from one breath to the next.

And he’s expecting to lose it all too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was actually started a while back.
> 
> It also had an elemental feel to it, because d'Art faces two elements; water which takes his father and fire, which gives him a father figure, essentially. I also liked the idea of trying to weave senses of otherness.
> 
> Also, Athos is the shortest because he went through the least altering of home of the four, but all of his alterings were _huge_.
> 
> *headdesks*
> 
> This drained me.
> 
> I need to write something happy for these four.


End file.
